Bob Williams

Practical advice for educating employees about your eCommerce platform

February 3rd, 2012 | Leave a comment | Tags: , , , , ,

There are two groups of people in your eCommerce organization that are on the front-line of dealing directly with customers each day: the help desk and the call center.  Yet when we think about the software development release cycle, it’s easy to focus all of our attention on the planning, development, and testing cycles for release management  and forget about the people who provide operational support.

The work to keep the help desk and call center in the know is not difficult, but it does require periodic and intentionally focused effort. There are a few things I’ve learned over the years to help keep the front line up-to-date.

1. Make …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

eCommerce solutions ownership – customer focused results

November 1st, 2010 | Leave a comment | Tags: , , ,

An important role in an eCommerce operation is responsibility for solutions ownership and the results delivered to senior management and other stakeholders. It’s a senior role that focuses on the macro level results that  define the success and viability of the eCommerce team. In addition to the traditional financial and market metrics, the solutions owner must deliver customer focused results. It’s the customer focus that provides the building blocks for the traditional results and helps to set an eCommerce team apart from it’s competitors.

Traditional financial results

A solutions owner is responsible for profitable results with positive contribution margins. The contribution margin of a product is defined as the revenue …Continue reading >>

Bob Williams

Defining an eCommerce Operation – Solution Ownership

June 9th, 2009 | 9 comments | Tags: , , , ,

UPDATE 10/27/10 – I posted a mind map of my eCommerce Operation on mindmeister that replaces the original map contained in this post. This includes the latest updates to my organizational thoughts on an eCommerce team.

My boss sent me a mind-map from MindMesiter last week for an eCommerce Operation. The map attempts to define the elements that make up an eCommerce operation in an organization. This type of thought and discussion is relevant for those that are running eCommerce and Internet Marketing groups. I’ll summarize my thoughts on the topic in this and future posts. The first area of the map is for solution ownership.  By the way, I …Continue reading >>